Timeline for Instructing someone to ask him/herself. Which is the correct use of punctuation?

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Jan 14, 2012 at 18:47	comment	added	FumbleFingers		oic - yes, I agree. That last version in your preceding comment isn't exactly uncommon, but it's definitely a bit "iffy" if subjected to scrutiny. Sorta straddles direct and indirect reported speech in a way we're all quite used to reading, but don't really want to justify grammatically.
Jan 14, 2012 at 18:43	comment	added	Barrie England		No, no, I didn't mean that indirect was preferable to direct. I simply meant that if the sentence is to be formulated as an indirect question, then ‘Ask yourself if this is really what you want’ might be preferable to 'Ask yourself, is this really what you want?'
Jan 14, 2012 at 18:37	comment	added	FumbleFingers		I don't really see why you say "...is best written as..." It seems to me these are just stylistic variations that in and of themselves are equally valid. There's a level of "intimacy/immediacy" in the direct reported speech version which might often be better than the indirect one, but to have an opinion on which is "better" with only the context OP gives seems odd to me.
Jan 14, 2012 at 15:56	history	answered	Barrie England	CC BY-SA 3.0